Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/155

 these apprehensions; and after a short struggle, avarice and the dear delight of power triumphed over their fears, and Cassy became the property of Mr Proctor — for so the man was named. His property, as he might speciously argue, by her own consent; a ten times better title, than the vast majority of his countrymen could boast.

To prevent suspicions among the neighbors, it was agreed that Cassy should pass for a free woman, whom Mr Proctor had hired; and as that gentleman had been so fortunate as to have been initiated into the art and mystery of penmanship — an accomplishment somewhat rare among the 'poor white folks' of Virginia — in order that Cassy might be prepared to answer impertinent questions, he gave her free-papers, which he forged for the occasion.

It was a great thing to have escaped returning to Spring-Meadow. But for all that, Cassy soon discovered, that her present situation would not prove very agreeable. Mr Proctor was the descendant and representative of what, at no distant period, had been a rich and very respectable family. The frequent division of a large estate, which nobody took any pains to increase, while all diminished it by idleness, dissipation and bad management, had left Mr Proctor's father in possession of a few slaves and a considerable tract of worn-out land. At his death, the slaves had been sold to pay his debts, and the land, being divided among his numerous children, had made Mr Proctor the possessor of only a few barren acres. But though left with this miserable pittance, he had been brought up, in the dissipated and indolent habits of a Virginian gentleman; the land he owned, which was so poor and worthless that none of his numerous creditors thought it worth their while to disturb him in the possession of it, still entitled him to the dignity of a freeholder and a voter; and he felt himself as much above, what is esteemed in that country, the base and degraded condition of a laborer, as the richest aristocrat in the whole state. He was as proud, as lazy, and as dissipated as any of the nabobs, his neighbors; and like them, he devoted the principal part of his time to gambling, politics and drink.

Luckily for Mr Proctor, his wife was a very notable